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Testimony Regarding H.R. 2532 (Tribal Heritage and Grizzly Bear Protection Act) Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committ

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Testimony Regarding H.R. 2532 (Tribal Heritage and Grizzly Bear Protection Act) Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committ Testimony Regarding H.R. 2532 (Tribal Heritage and Grizzly Bear Protection Act) Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Jonathan Wood Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation Research Fellow, Property and Environment Research Center May 15, 2019 Main Points ● The Greater Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly’s recovery is due to the collaboration of federal biologists, states, tribes, conservation groups, and landowners. ● Congress should encourage these efforts to continue while preserving the flexibility states and tribes need to manage growing grizzly populations. ● Unfortunately, H.R. 2532 could discourage further recovery efforts for this species and potentially others. ● Instead, Congress should incentivize continued state and tribal efforts to establish additional populations. ● It should also seek to convert grizzlies into less of a liability and more of an asset for the landowners who accommodate them or provide habitat. ● Ultimately, managing recovered wildlife is a state responsibility, and it’s time for states to lead on grizzly bear conservation. U.S. House of Representatives May 15, 2019 Page 1 Chairman Huffman, Ranking Member McClintock, and honorable members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to address this important topic. I am a senior attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, where I litigate environmental cases, principally concerning endangered species. I am also a research fellow with the Property and Environment Research Center based in Bozeman, Montana, where they directly experience the costs and benefits of grizzlies. I’ve also written extensively on endangered species and other environmental issues, including in law review journals and articles for the popular press. The recovery of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly has been “a true American conservation success story,” according to Collin O’Mara, president of the National Wildlife Federation.1 I agree. With that recovery, it is appropriate for Congress to consider how it can best promote the population’s continued growth while recovering grizzly in other suitable habitats. Your focus in that endeavor should be on creating the right incentives. The GYE grizzly’s recovery required the cooperation of federal biologists, state wildlife officials, conservationists, and landowners.2 A significant motivation for that effort was the promise that the states would assume management responsibility for the recovered population, including greater flexibility to promote the species’ continued progress while addressing competing concerns. The simple fact is that, as the National Wildlife Federation has noted, “[a]s the needs of Yellowstone grizzlies change or increase, so will the tools and protections needed to meet them.”3 1 See Press Release, Nat’l Wildlife Fed., Grizzly Bear Recovery an Endangered Species Act Success Story (Mar. 3, 2016), available at https://www.nwf.org/en/Latest-News/Press-Releases/2016/3-03-16- Grizzly-Bear-Recovery-an-Endangered-Species-Act-Success-Story. 2 See Nat’l Park Serv., Grizzly Bears & the Endangered Species Act, https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/bearesa.htm (last accessed May 10, 2019); see also Final Rule Removing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Population of Grizzly Bears From the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife, 82 Fed. Reg. 30,502 (June 30, 2017). 3 See Nat’l Wildlife Fed., The Facts About Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Delisting, https://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Wildlife/FactsAboutGrizzlyDelisting.ashx (last accessed May 9, 2019). U.S. House of Representatives May 15, 2019 Page 2 Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s reaction to the delisting was entirely correct: it “is a remarkable success story . one we should celebrate[.]”4 Doing so means acknowledging and rewarding past efforts while ensuring that the incentives of these stakeholders remain aligned. If we don’t reward those who contribute to the successful recovery of one population, we leave little reason for others to contribute their resources and energy to the recovery of other populations.5 Unfortunately, H.R. 2532 would undermine this progress and replace cooperation with conflict. Sections 3 and 5 of the bill would, respectively, broadly prohibit take6 after populations recover and limit when permits could be issued. Effectively retracting state management authority over wildlife, it would require federal management of the species in perpetuity. This would eliminate a key incentive for collaborative efforts to recover grizzly populations. It could also set a precedent that could undermine such efforts for other species and undermine public support for wildlife conservation and the ESA. Although not always ideal, the fact is that the primary carrot the Endangered Species Act offers to those who work toward species recovery is the prospect that success will be rewarded by a return to state management and reduced regulatory burdens at the federal level. Eliminating this incentive is sure to discourage such efforts going forward. Paradoxically, H.R. 2532 not only requires federal permitting after a population recovers, but it also appears to propose making permits more difficult to obtain after that recovery than when populations remained subject to the ESA, effectively punishing successful recovery efforts. That said, there are sensible things Congress can do to encourage the continued growth of existing grizzly populations while also incentivizing the restoration of 4 Press Release, Governor Bullock Welcomes Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Delisting (June 22, 2017), available at http://governor.mt.gov/pressroom/governor-bullock-welcomes-yellowstone-grizzly-bear- delisting. 5 See Jonathan Wood, Recognizing Grizzly Bear’s Recovery in Yellowstone Will Spur Further Conservation Efforts, PERC.org (Oct. 26, 2018), available at https://www.perc.org/2018/10/26/recognizing-grizzly-bears-recovery-in-yellowstone-will-spur-further- conservation-efforts/. 6 This term is commonly misunderstood as applying only to the intentionally killing or harming of protected wildlife. Under the ESA and laws that borrow its definitions, it includes a wide range of activities that incidentally affect a member of a species or its habitat, including many innocent activities that merely disturb wildlife. See Jonathan Wood, Overcriminalization and the Endangered Species Act: Mens Rea and Criminal Convictions for Take, 46 Envtl. L. Rep. 10,496, 10,504-06 (2016). U.S. House of Representatives May 15, 2019 Page 3 others. But doing so would require treating states, tribes, landowners, and others as partners. For instance, H.R. 2532’s proposal to compensate landowners for livestock lost to grizzly predation is a sensible way to reduce the liability imposed on landowners who provide much-needed habitat. But it would be even better to make grizzlies an asset for states, tribes, and landowners by preserving flexible, local management and providing positive incentives to accommodate grizzlies’ presence and to protect or restore their habitat. The right incentives are critical for recovering wildlife populations. “Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.”7 Aldo Leopold’s words are as true today as they were when he wrote them. Time and again, we are reminded that conservation is best achieved by aligning the interests of all public and private stakeholders, thereby encouraging them to work together to recover wildlife populations. In 2017, the GYE grizzly population became only the 39th U.S. species delisted under the ESA.8 From a mere 136 grizzlies in 1975, that population has grown to 700—likely the ecosystem’s carrying capacity.9 This has been thanks, in large part, to the efforts of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which since 1983 has been coordinating planning, management, and research with the federal and state agencies responsible for grizzly bear recovery.10 Although that coordinated recovery has been challenged in court,11 I expect the Ninth Circuit will uphold the delisting decision.12 Even if not, the grounds cited by 7 Conservation Economics, The River of the Mother of God (1934). 8 82 Fed. Reg. 30,502. 9 See 82 Fed. Reg. at 30,512. 10 See Grizzly Bears & the Endangered Species Act, supra note 2. 11 See Crow Indian Tribe v. USA, No. 18-36030 (9th Cir. filed Dec. 5, 2018). Representing PLF and the PERC, I will be filing an amicus brief in that case, arguing that the district court erred in overturning the decision. 12 Although a full explication is beyond this testimony, the district court’s decision striking down the delisting is incorrect for at least three reasons. First, it applied a higher standard for delisting than applies to listing decisions, which is contrary to the text of the statute. See 16 U.S.C. §1533(a)(1), (b); see also 83 Fed. Reg. 35,196. Second, it held an acknowledged gap in the scientific literature against the agency, which is clearly forbidden by precedent and ignores the other evidence cited by the agency. Arizona Cattle Growers Ass’n v. Salazar, 606 F.3d 1160, 1164 (9th Cir. 2010); 82 Fed. Reg. at U.S. House of Representatives May 15, 2019 Page 4 the district court in striking down the delisting are such that the agency will likely soon consider once again whether to delist this population and others. But continued litigation could be avoided if Congress recognized this population’s recovery while providing additional tools for its post-listing management. Recovering endangered and threatened species populations has been an all-too-rare achievement. Although the ESA has an impressive record for preventing extinction (99% of protected species remain around), it has underwhelmed on the more ambitious goal of recovery (which has been achieved for only 2% of those species).13 This is because the ESA only sometimes achieves the alignment of incentives required to recover imperiled species.14 Too often, heavy-handed federal regulations create perverse incentives, encouraging the preemptive destruction of habitat and discouraging its restoration.15 30,544. Finally, the court engaged in unsupported policy speculation. See Crow Indian Tribe, 343 F.Supp.3d at 1014.
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